“NewJeans’s Mother” Min Hee-jin Already Targeted Bang Si-hyuk Since Last Year?

According to reports in the music industry on April 22nd, HYBE decided to conduct an audit of ADOR, including executives and CEO Min Hee-jin, as they believed that Min Hee-jin and others were trying to make ADOR independent from HYBE. HYBE’s audit team reportedly visited ADOR’s management office to retrieve company assets and secure statements personally.

HYBE suspects Min Hee-jin of leaking confidential documents, such as contracts, to attract investors and discussing ways to induce HYBE to sell ADOR shares. ADOR is a label under HYBE established by Min Hee-jin in 2021. HYBE holds 80% of the stake in ADOR and the remaining 20% is held by CEO Min and other executives of ADOR. 

In the meantime, some netizens recalled Min Hee-jin’s remarks in an interview with Cine21 last year. In particular, she emphasized that ADOR is operated as an independent company in terms of creativity and has nothing to do with HYBE despite being a label of the cooperation.

When asked, “What was the reason behind the necessity of independence for both management and production?”, Min Hee-jin shared, “I’ve witnessed many conflicts stemming from contrasting opinions in creation and management”. She added, “People easily say, ‘It’s HYBE capital’, but I personally disagree with that expression. After the investment was made, detailed management strategies are decided by the label independently, unrelated to HYBE. At that time, we received a lot of proposals from many investors apart from HYBE”

She continued, “During the time I entered HYBE, I had a variety of options. Wherever I decided to go, ‘independence of creation’ and ‘no interference’ would have been the top priorities. Going to HYBE was not something I must do”.

Regarding speculations about HYBE investing a large amount in NewJeans music video production, Min Hee-jin firmly stated, “HYBE cannot confirm details of ADOR’s production plans and where we spent the money.” 

About NewJeans members receiving salaries right after their debut, Min Hee-jin said, “The salary settlements were not made because of my generosity or the scale of HYBE. It happened because the conditions for settlements were met”. She added, “In short, we achieved success with NewJeans within a short period of time due to the combination of appropriate budget management and the triple title strategy. When I decided to make three title songs, the members were very surprised. There were various opinions, but I made my decision as a producer and CEO.”

In other words, Min Hee-jin claimed that NewJeans succeeded thanks to the capabilities of ADOR, not HYBE. 

Based on her answer in this interview, some already predicted Min Hee-jin’s plan to make ADOR independent from HYBE and pointed out that Min Hee-jin has been in conflict with HYBE’s Chairman Bang Si-hyuk since last year.

Known by the nickname “Mother of NewJeans”, Min Hee-jin is currently the creative director of the girl group. Making their debut in 2022, NewJeans has grown into a world-class girl group.

Source: wikitree